Emma is a Labradoodle service dog for a young man with Cerebral Palsy. Her job is to assist him with putting his arms back on his arm rests, picking up his room, cleaning up her toys, helping him undress, making/turning down his bed, deep pressure and getting help when he needs it. She will have other in home tasks that will make his daily life more independent.

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Thursday, April 11, 2013

7 Months, 2 Weeks: Training - Day 76

Emma did a 1 minute down today!

As I mentioned in Jack's blog, I woke to a flare of whatever is happening to me. My balance was shot, my pain levels were at an all time high and I was so worn out mentally and emotionally that I couldn't think of training any dogs. I also had an appointment in the afternoon, so I decided to just feed the dogs first thing in the morning and try to take it easy so I could get some training in during the afternoon.

Emma, like Jack, enters her crate now without a fuss, but once left alone puts up a howl that can be heard in all 48 contiguous states. This means I will need to begin serious work on Emma's crate training to make the days I have to crate her for an errand or appointment easier on her.

I'll begin serious crate training next week to build up her appreciation of the crate and give it a large and rich reward history to make her crate a good place to be. This week I am still working on her ability to pivot with me, which is progressing, but going slowly at this time.

Today's Lessons:

Focus

Emma is working on Level 2: Step 2 Focus. In this step Emma is asked to keep eye contact for 2 seconds. This is continuous eye contact without tiny flickers or glances away. Emma is having problems with this again, which is expected, so I am building up from the brief eye contact to more solid and purposeful eye contact and then adding duration. Each time I do this we spend less time working up to the meaningful eye contact and stay stabilized at 1 and 2 second eye contact with bouts of 3 and 4 second eye contact thrown in. Emma is progressing nicely and we'll continue to work on eye contact.

Down

Emma is working on Level 2: Step 5 Down. Yes folks, she passed Level 2: Step 4 Down. I timed her for 1 minute in a down at 20 feet from me with 4 dogs milling about her in the living room. Great job little girl. We'll start the next segment next week - she's worked hard on down this week and needs a bit of a break on it so she can process what she learned.

Observations

What an amazing girl Emma is. She's still a bit of a Wilting Willow at times, but overall she's becoming bolder and more confident as she works through the duration and distance behaviors. She'a approaching another fear period and I believe we'll just take it slow and build her confidence during this fear period so she comes out the other end stronger and bolder than before.